Sunday, 7 August 2011

Sunday 7 August

Overcast and at times wet in the afternoon, not really warm. In other words, weather not inviting for any outside exploits. I spent some time transcribing WW2 tributes from the pages of the Stornoway Gazette of 1940.

I was stunned to see the devastation wreaked by serious rioting in North London overnight, following the fatal shooting by police of a local resident three days ago. Violence never resolves anything, and in situations like that, the rent-a-mob element is certain to put in an appearance.

It is still busy on the tropical cyclones front, and in the next couple of days former typhoon Muifa will move ashore just west of the border between North Korea and China. Another typhoon, Merbok, is moving north along the 154th degree longitude east and may end up affecting the Aleutian Islands or the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia. By that time, Merbok will be a storm-force depression of the type that those areas commonly see through the year. Emily has come back from death over Hispaniola, but only as a shadow of its former self: the depression is scooting away northeast from the Bahamas.